Tag Archives: 80s movies

One of the most prescient dystopian science fiction films of the 1980′s turned out to be the (direct to video?) 1987 movie, “Cherry 2000.”

The future depicted in Cherry 2000 is one where sexual encounters and relationships with real women have become complicated legal transactions requiring lawyers, and have been reduced to merely emotionless business arrangements. The women are typically aggressive, masculine, demanding and shrill. It leads to an environment where the rare romantic guy, who still longs for a traditional loving relationship, would actually find a courtship with a female android more emotionally fulfilling than one with a real live organic woman. It’s sort of a more sympathetic, less horrific spin on “The Stepford Wives” theme. In Stepford, the men killed their loving yet sassy wives in exchange for robot sex slaves who would do the dishes and clean the house without giving them any grief. They were portrayed unmistakably as as evil pricks. In contrast, the physically human women are the ones who display the robotic behavior in Cherry 2000, while the romantic men are forced to seek out the loving emulation of androids for any “meaningful” companionship. Of course the film sells out in the end, as the main character who sacrifices everything in a dangerous quest to replace his beloved, short circuited fembot(Cherry, played by Pamela Gidley) with the identical discontinued model, ultimately falls for the crass and bitchy, tomboyish tracker, “Edith”(Melanie Griffith) whom he’s hired to help locate the robot.

With the advent of “yes means yes” laws it doesn’t seem like it will be long before men will be required to get some type of verbally recorded or written consent to engage in sexual activity with a seemingly “turned on” girl, to shield themselves from litigation or criminal prosecution if she turns on them later. As if getting a girl pregnant or contracting an STD wasn’t enough to worry about, now we have bigger fish to fry. Indeed, there is already a phone app for sexual consent, called Good2Go.

Recent developments over the past two decades have lead me to conclude we’re headed towards Cherry 2000 style dating in America. Indeed, I’ve started to notice that the crudely annoying spambots on Tinder and Okcupid have been getting more sophisticated in their programming to the point where interacting with them can be more romantically stimulating than talking to actual chicks(which, if you’ve ever had an unfortunate exchange with one of these Tinderbots you would realize is more of a knock on the sorry state of the 21st century female conversational experience than it is one marveling in wonder at the advancements in artificial intelligence spam.)

Then there are video game characters. Back in a particularly isolated time period of my life in 2001 and 2002, when all I did was drink diet pepsi, eat microwave popcorn and play old Super Nintendo RPGs in my studio apartment, I would occasionally develop what I guess you could call “crushes” on some of the female sprites in the games(such as Rydia from Final Fantasy IV, Marle and Schala from Chrono Trigger, Paula from Earthbound, etc.) even to where I began to curiously research the technological possibilities of transferring human consciousness to a computer. I was thinking of course that if i could somehow hack a sprite that resembled me into the game’s ROM, that it might be possible to get something going. Yeah, it’s crazy but so what? Realized dreams are the work of madmen. I also saw Tron in the theater when I was a kid so perhaps it left a subconscious impression on me.

In any case, if that kind of emotion was possible to evoke in the days of 16 bit SNES pixelation, I can only imagine how real a romance could be in the context of modern video games which are now much more advanced in their elaborate overworlds, roleplays and simulations. Thousands if not millions of men and women find the virtual experience of video games more appealing than going outside and playing. It would be naive to think that organic human love would be any less vulnerable to competition from artificial intelligence than other components of our earthly existence.

Dust off your 1980′s JC Penney catalog and get your fembots on order, men! This scene is coming to a nightclub or campus near you.

WANTED: Two thrill-seeking reporters, brains optional, looking to dig up the story of the century

In 1985 the movie Transylvania 6-5000 came out. I’m not even sure it came out in theatres in Phoenix, but I do remember it coming out on VHS. My dad was a big fan of Michael Richards because of the weekly live skit show FRIDAYS that he starred on. I’m pretty sure that’s why my parents rented the movie and also rented the VCR, either from Circle K or Basha’s. The rental VCRs were encased in black plastic, and look more like rugged luggage. They were the best!

It’s about the head of a sleazy newspaper named Mac (Norman Fell) whose just watched a videotape that maybe shows the existence of Frankenstein’s monster (referred to as Frankenstein in the movie). Mac sends Jack (Jeff Goldblum) and Gil (Ed Begley, Jr), who is Mac’s son, to Transylvania to get the story behind the Frankenstein sighting. The movie plays like a modern day Abbott & Costello movie, or a Bing Crosby and Bob Hope “road” movie. Goldblum and Begley have great chemistry, and it’s a real shame that they didn’t star in another movie together.

This movie is jam packed with stars like Jeffrey Jones as the mayor, Michael Richards as the butler, Joseph Bologna as the mad scientist (also star of the Big Bus), and unforgettably, Geena Davis as a nymphomaniac vampire. She is one of the sexiest vampires ever in an American movie. This movie puts her in the Movie Cutie Hall of Fame. She has crazy sex appeal as the shy nympho vampire.

Michael Richards is also really good in this movie, showcasing the physical humor that made him a star later on. Some of his scenes are still super funny to me. Check out the scene with the puppet!

This movie also had an awesome box for it, it really made it seem like a scary movie, which there are no scary moments. I bet this movie was placed in the horror section and a few mom and pop video stores based on the box alone. It would look totally perfect sitting next to Evil Dead and Visiting Hours.

I also had no idea that the movie title was a pun on the Glenn Miller song Pennsylvania 6-5000 until I heard it in in a thrift store. I was in my twenties and had a crazy flashback to this movie.

If you are trying to build up a collection of VHS movies, this movie is worth it!

It might be rated PG, but I doubt anyone under 21 would really enjoy the movie. Its not slapstick enough for the younger kids, there are not real scary moments, and the humor is not vulgar ever. It’s the opposite of typical comedies these days.

It not great, but it really has some funny moments, a lot of charm with its great cast, and it’s good to watch when your’e feeling down.